While watching the new Star Wars trailer with my children this week, I was mesmerized by the entire production. I fondly remember the first time my parents took my brother and I to see any of the films (The Empire Strikes Back). After seeing it, my brother and I were hooked on the story, the images, and the action figures. Oh, and the Millennium Falcon, with the cool hidden panel on the floor. My brother had that …
Do you see patterns in your spending, saving, and investing behaviors that mirror those of your parents? Or, have you changed because, perhaps, their behaviors didn’t provide the best illustration of how to successfully manage finances? What types of parental experiences are positively related to a child’s future net worth? What sets of experiences would lead to someone accumulating more than his peers, regardless of income, age, and what what gifted to him? In examining …
I know elementary school teachers, coaches, and your parents told you that all that matters is that you do your best. Unfortunately, they all lied to you. The professor who wrote this was responding to a fictional (albeit realistic) scenario: how would you respond to a student who asked for a grade change on a project because she “worked so hard on it?” The idea that you could work hard on something and not …
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. – Winston Churchill Summer is winding down here in the South. In a few days, kids will be leaving the pools, playgrounds, and backyards for desks, hallways, and classrooms. Some lament the return to routine and early mornings and traffic, while others rejoice in the beauty of new opportunities, new friends, new experiences. Many view the end of summer with …
With a variety of interests, behaviors, experiences, personalities, and attitudes about money, we manage finances, invest, and save. Even if we are not directly responsible for financial management, we are involved via spending or generating income. How do financial institutions and advisors provide guidance? They divide us up into groups by our age, gender, net worth, income, and maybe some less-than-ideal measure of risk tolerance. The focus on Millennials is a great example of this: …